The allegations were heard at Tulisa Contostavlos's drug trial last week, when a recording was played of her PA, Gareth Varey, telling ‘fake sheikh’ Mazher Mahmood that he knew people that the X Factor judge had slept with.

The trial was yesterday (21 July) thrown out of court after the judge said he had “strong grounds for believing” that the Sun on Sunday undercover journalist “told me lies when he gave evidence”. He has been suspended from the publication pending further investigation.

“However, the issue was the false suggestion made by Mr Varey that Simon - who is renowned for his honesty and candidness - had thus not been truthful in the public arena and this is what we have been obliged to clarify.”

“This case only happened because Mahmood and his team tricked me into believing I was auditioning for a major movie role,” said the singer in a statement.

“They targeted me at a time when things were going badly for me and they had no mercy. Mahmood got me and my team completely intoxicated and persuaded me to act the part of a bad, rough, ghetto girl. They recorded this and produced it as evidence when I thought it was an audition. It was a terrible thing to do.”